Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing

Division VII.1 – Building Materials

Brief description of organization: BAM is a federal institute under the auspices of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology and represents one of the leading national chemical and material technological institutes in Germany. Its mission is to promote the development of the German economy and it is therefore working closely together with industry, associations, universities and governmental institutions. BAM is with 1600 employees one of the larger research organizations in Germany.

Brief description of tasks attributed: BAM is leading work packages 4. BAM’s main contribution is to investigate the behaviour of earthen materials towards earthquake stress and define strategies for low invasive intervention techniques to strengthen historical earthen structures against earthquake damage. This will include actual experiments in their own labs on structural elements of earth. BAM will also mainly contribute to WP 2, 3, 5, 6, 9 and 10, namely when questions concerning earthen materials are concerned.

Previous experience relevant to tasks attributed: The main area of BAM - Division VII.1 – Building materials is research in performance and durability of building materials. A part of the multidisciplinary team focuses on improvement of material behaviour for variable conditions as well as assesses and analyzes damage and damage mechanisms causing degradation of materials under different environmental conditions. Due to its many projects involving Cultural Heritage objects and monuments members of the division VII.1 have a solid expertise in the properties and behaviour of different materials used for historical and ancient monuments. They are also well aware of the requirements from the side of CH authorities and trained in communicating to conservators, property owners and decision makers. As part of a large research organisation, the division VII.1 has access to many techniques and instrumentation of which the most important for the project are in the division’s responsibilities.

Short profile of staff members:

Patrick Fontana is Senior Scientist, Graduate in Civil Engineering at Technical University of Berlin, PhD in Civil Engineering in 2006 at Technical University of Brunswick. As civil engineer he is working since 10 years in the field of construction material science, focusing on damage mechanisms and durability. He is active member of RILEM TC 214-CCD (Concrete Cracking and its Relation to Durability) and of German Committee for Standards, Task Force 'Earthen Materials'.

Lorenzo Miccoli is Research Associate at BAM Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing of Berlin. Born in March 1981, PhD in Building Engineering and Architecture at Department of Civil Engineering at University of Rome “Tor Vergata” in 2010. Graduated in Building Engineering at University of Rome “Tor Vergata” in 2006, visiting scholar at Yangzhou University, China, in 2005. Visiting student in the Erasmus Project at the Ecole d’Architecture de Paris La Villette, France in 2004/2005. His main research focus on conservation of Cultural Heritage, dynamic and static analysis of historical buildings.

André Gardei is Research Associate at BAM Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing of Berlin. Born in July 1969, Graduated in Geology at Technical University of Berlin in 1997, he worked from 1997 until 2001 at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences as a Research Associate in geothermic and 3D-petrophysics, from 2001 until 2005 at BAM he was responsible for automatisation and validation of nondestructive testing methods in civil engineering, from 2005 he is member of the working group "Damage Mechanisms and Protective Measures". His main research focus on conservation of Cultural Heritage, protective measures for historical building materials.